SFist Tonight
Week Around the Ists
SFist Tonight
Adrianne Pieczonka and Lado Ataneli, by Cory Weaver/SF Opera.
Now, don't get our word for it, and go get yourself a free ticket for the free Opera at the Ballpark! You can see, this Friday at 8pm, rain or shine, the opera on a giant hi-def screen while munching on garlic fries, in the retro-cute stadium that you did not know you subsidized.
If the recession will bring us more risk adverse workhorses, hopefully they'll be as good as this one. We loved the Angels & Demons-chic sets, inspired by the 1932 production. They had creepy Gothic down pat even back then.
Carlo Ventre (top) and Dale Travis (seating), picture by Cory Weaver courtesy of SF Opera.
The conductor, Marco Armiliato, played Puccini for all the pathos he could find, bringing out all the syrupy out of the music, an appropriate match for the waffle ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese set. We have to give a shout out to Civic Center Mike, who shot the tenor without a hint of remorse as a supernumerary.
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FYI, this event is on Friday, 6/5
Oops, corrected, thanks.
Thanks for the writeup. I'll take a pass on this presentation.
The set looks very good, but I'll tell you... Not even that one dude, DJTennessee, would look at that Tosca and say, "I'd hit that." She's out of a "Milfs gone sour" porn movie.
Why can't Tosca's look like what I envision a Tosca to be. True, I'm probably a hopeless romantic, reading the libretto and believing that a woman hot enough for Scarpia to get a raging hardon for has got to be hot. I mean, Samual Ramey isn't exactly a spring chicken, and plus, isn't he gay? Anyway, maybe it has to do with a soprano needing a certain amount of chest cavity in order to both project and hold a note.
But I'm not convinced...
I saw Tosca at the Staatsoper in Berlin a couple of years ago, and I finally saw a Tosca that was hittable. Sounded good, too.
Please, Mr. Gockley -- please remember that opera is theatre as well as music. I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to think that folks are starting wars, torturing people, enduring torture, and just generally being mean S.O.B.'s -- all to get into that Tosca's pants. Can't do it.